Old Missoula

Good Christians – don’t do shameful broncho-busting!

Shameful Stampede

Stampede Called By Ministers Shameful

Pastor’s Association Denounces Wild West Entertainment in Resolution

The Ministers’ association of Missoula has requested the publication of the following protest against the Stampede next month:

With a solemn sense of our duty as citizens of Missoula and leaders in its moral and religious life, we, the Ministers’ association of Missoula, do hereby enter this our most earnest protest against the much-advertised Stampede to be held the first, second, third and fourth days of July next.

We protest on the following grounds:

First, the general character of the Stampede is open to question. It is “a wild west show,” consisting of “bull-roping,” “broncho-busting,” and other rough sports of the cattle range and frontier life. It attracts the rougher elements of society, and appeals to the coarser instincts in sportsmanship. It makes way for drunkenness and lawlessness and other dissipations. It takes away large sums of the people’s money and makes no contribution to the common weal. It will leave the city poorer in money and character. It will advertise Missoula as “a wild west town,” and turn away homeseekers of the class desired to build up a city of culture and learning and moral and material wealth. The University city of Montana should not have attached to it the stigma of fostering and patronizing such an institution as this Stampede promises to be.

Second, we particularly protest against the performances scheduled for Sunday, July 2. There are very few cities, if any, on the American continent, north of the Mexican line, that would tolerate such a desecration of the day held sacred by the great majority of our people as it has been held in all the Christian centuries. In this particular, at any rate, the Stampede violates the Christian conscience of the American people, and is at variance with the most sacred traditions and ideals in American history. It is a grievous offense to our Christian civilization. It is a reproach and a slander upon our fair city. The people of Missoula, we must believe do respect, and many of them do revere, the holy day of our Christian faith, however the promoters of this Stampede may seem to declare the contrary. Therefore in the name of all the sacred interests involved we do most earnestly register our utter disapproval.

Third, we further protest against the official, or semi-official patronage under which this Stampede is to be held. The chamber of commerce, an association of the leading business men and women of the city, having as its object the promotion of the city’s welfare, is lending the Stampede its “moral support,” and has, as we understand, accepted consideration for that support. We protest against such patronage. Some of us, as members of the chamber of commerce, repudiate for ourselves every promise of “moral support” that the chamber of commerce may have made in our behalf.

The day of Missoula’s deepest shame is coming, if nothing can be done to close the gates of the Missoula county fairgrounds on Sunday, July 2, 1916. This is our deliberate judgment, and in issuing this protest we firmly believe that we are upholding true standards of civic righteousness, and giving voice to the best convictions of the citizenry of Missoula.

C. B. Allen,

M. H. Clements,

Charles D. Crouch

H. S. Gatley,

H. H. Griffis,

Philip D. Hartman,

J. N. Maclean,

D. David Swanson,

I. M. Underwood,

Ministers’ Association of Missoula, Montana.

The above warning appeared in the June 25, 1916 Daily Missoulian.